Lee Vance: The Garden of Betrayal

“First,” I said, intent on correcting as many misapprehensions as possible, “natural gas is only cheap now because the economy tanked. And because it’s cheap now, a lot of companies have canceled exploration and development projects. All of which means that prices are likely to go to the moon as soon as demand picks up again.”

“Is that a prediction, mate?” an Australian voice asked.

“Absolutely. Second, the ex-Eastern Bloc countries can’t buy from someone else, because gas moves most economically through pipelines, and the only producer their pipelines connect with is Russia. Nobody’s going to invest the money to change that anytime soon, because pipelines are expensive, and eastern Europe isn’t that big a market. The Russians have been over a barrel for the last decade, because the routing of the existing pipelines meant that they couldn’t interrupt delivery of gas to eastern Europe without also interrupting delivery to western Europe. The Nord Stream pipeline changes that by making a direct connection to Germany under the Baltic Sea. And the Ukrainians and the Poles and all the other former Soviet clients and republics that have been trying to put distance between themselves and their former master are keenly aware of the fact that it’s difficult to ignore a neighbor who can turn off your lights and heat.”

“The speaker of the Russian Duma accused the Ukrainians on Moscow radio,” someone else said. “How likely does that seem to you?”

“Russia bit the bullet on western exports and turned off Ukraine’s gas twice in the last five years, once in January 2006 and once in March 2008, because of arguments over subsidized pricing. The ultranationalists in the Ukrainian coalition government made some ugly threats at the time. That puts them at the top of everyone’s suspect list.”

“So, you think they did it?” the same voice demanded.

“My opinion is that who actually did it isn’t important in the short run. What matters is how the Russians react. They’re going to be under enormous pressure to hit back hard and fast, and as the United States learned to its detriment in Iraq, intelligence has a way of providing the answers politicians want. Which raises the question of how NATO will respond if Russia threatens military action against one of the former Soviet republics.”

A message from Alex popped up on my screen as two callers began arguing with each other about the likelihood of the Ukrainians having sponsored the attack. Drink? it read. I checked my watch. It was only a little past four, and I still had a huge amount of work to do. I hadn’t been out with Alex in a while, though, and I knew how he must be feeling. There are no secrets on trading floors-Alex had gotten creamed. I wavered a moment and then typed back: Fifteen minutes.

“I have time for two more questions.”

“What’s your best trade?” another voice asked.

“The slope of the forward price curve. Let’s take a look at the ICE closing prices for Brent…”

Alex was at his desk in his office, typing something on his computer. I tapped on his door and then took a seat, waiting for him to finish. He’d changed his shirt, but he still looked like hell. I was always taken aback to notice how worn and bloated he’d become-in my mind’s eye, I always saw the skinny, engaging kid I’d first met a decade ago, a kinetic-market wonk with short-cropped hair and black-framed glasses who bore a passing likeness to Buddy Holly and wore his khaki pants too short. I’d been a top-ranked Wall Street analyst at the time, and Alex had been a recent college grad trying to make a go of his own small fund. Walter, a major client, had leaned on me, insisting that I spend time with him. Alex overcame my initial reluctance by being smart and entertaining. We fell into the habit of talking regularly-about work, and other things. Protective of my constrained time with Claire and the kids, I rarely invited professional acquaintances home, but I liked Alex enough to extend an invitation. He’d been a hit, charming Claire with his interest in the arts, and Kate and Kyle with a repertoire of simple card tricks and a willingness to play hide-and-seek. I remember thinking that he was exactly the kind of vivacious, intellectually curious young adult I hoped my own children would become. Claire insisted that I invite him back so she could fatten him up a little, but his luck had already begun to turn bad, and the return visit had been postponed and eventually abandoned.

“Tough day,” I said.

“For lots of people.” Alex pushed his glasses up with one hand to massage raw-looking indentations on either side of his nose. “What’s the death count now?”

“North of three hundred.” The only good news I’d received all day was a follow-up text from Gavin, saying that he and his family had made it back to England safely.

He winced.

“And here I am feeling sorry for myself because I got my socks blown off by the market. It puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?”

Yes and no. Tragedy put unimportant things in perspective, but genuine pain was tougher to mitigate. Alex had been born with enough money to support any lifestyle he chose, but the only thing he really wanted was his father’s approval. He’d been working at it as long as I knew him, and the harder he worked, the more it eluded him.

“How bad did you get hurt?” I inquired, thinking it was marginally less awkward than not asking.

“Drink first,” he said.

We rode the elevator down together and walked around the corner to Pagliacci, an upscale restaurant-cum-lounge that was usually deserted at this time of day. The wallpaper, the cocktail napkins, and the bar menu were all decorated with clowns; even the light fixtures had clown faces stamped on the brass escutcheons. The place gave me the creeps, but Alex liked it for some reason. The barman saw us come in and reached for a bottle of Stoli. He settled a half-full highball glass in front of Alex as we took stools at the empty bar, then tipped his chin at me.

“Amstel.”

Alex gulped at his glass three times, and the barman hit him again.

“You want to talk about it?” I ventured.

“Let me ask you a question,” he said, staring down at the bar. “I’ve been hearing guys in the office call me Eddie behind my back. What’s that about?”

Walter had named his firm after a classic American muscle car, the Ford AC Cobra. His first few apprentices who’d spun out on their own had followed suit, calling their funds Mustang and Charger. It caught on. When Alex briefly ran his own fund, he’d named it Torino. Like the Cobra, the Torino was a Ford.

“No idea,” I said.

“You could do me a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“You could not lie to me.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Five years back, when I’d been foundering, Alex was the one who’d persuaded his father to throw me a lifeline. I was indebted to him. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I didn’t see that I had any choice.

“Eddie comes from Edsel.”

He nodded and took another swallow of his drink. The Ford Edsel was Detroit’s most infamous mistake, a hugely touted vehicle that had failed utterly.

“That’s funny,” he said. “The Edsel was named after Henry Ford’s kid, right?”

I nodded.

“Who came up with that?”

“I don’t know.”

He swiveled on his stool to face me.

“Didn’t I already ask you not to fucking lie to me?”

I picked up my beer and took a sip, meeting his gaze levelly. I really didn’t know who’d come up with it. Jokes and nicknames swept across trading floors like wildfires, and you rarely learned the source. What I did know was that there were a lot of guys who resented Alex because he was the boss’s son, and because anyone else with Alex’s track record would have been out on his ass years ago.